Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: Hey, mud podcast presents.
Welcome, listeners, to Mindful Mud. I am Frulinaricli. I'm your host and producer here. I am a Zen teacher and a mindfulness instructor. Today on Mindful Mud, I have a very different topic. We explore mindfulness in spite of sports. Just right for the whole World cup and all the excitement that's in the air.
And my guest today is Dr. Paul McCarthy, a sports psychologist from the UK.
We will look at what research tells us a little bit about mindfulness in sport. We will also find out directly how perhaps Paul is working with athletes and how mindfulness helps them to be more grounded and different kinds of athletes. I'm very curious to learn here. So a couple words about my guest today. I'm actually really, really feel very fortunate to have Dr. Paul McCarthy here zooming in from the UK and he is a chartered sport and exercise psychologist and registered practitioner with the HC CPC. With over 25 years of experience, he works globally with elite athletes, Olympians and teams, specializing in mental skill training, challenge threat motivation and performance anxiety management.
There's way more to say about you, Paul, but I'd like to give the word to you. Welcome, Paul.
[00:01:46] Speaker B: Welcome. Yeah, thank you for, for having me. Delighted to be here.
[00:01:50] Speaker A: That is wonderful.
Yeah. So I'm curious, Paul, what brought you to into sports psychology and what keeps you interested in that more? The internal life of athletes?
[00:02:07] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I guess it began quite a few, well, almost 30 years ago where I attended a lecture delivered by somebody called Professor Aid Morin, who sadly passed away in 2020.
I'm originally from Ireland and he was a professor in Dublin and he was leading light, really, within the field, both in research and in practice.
And after hearing him lecture, it was what inspired me to follow a similar route to work in academia and to work as a practitioner psychologist.
[00:02:46] Speaker A: You also work in the.
In a university, right, in Glasgow.
[00:02:51] Speaker B: That's correct, yeah. So a lot of my university work is training psychologists to become chartered in sport and exercise and we end up within our program we have sport and exercise psychologists, but alongside them are health psychologists and counseling psychologists training for their own degrees.
And we spent.
[00:03:17] Speaker A: That's fascinating. And you do also some research?
[00:03:20] Speaker B: Yeah. So research is a big part of the doctoral training program and it's a big part of what we like to do ourselves in various facets of applied sports psychology, a lot about the therapeutic work and then various elements of interventions, like whether it's mindfulness or different facets of training about focus and concentration, it might be about working with teams and how they Function effectively and so on and.
[00:03:51] Speaker A: Yeah, and are there other people in the, in the team you work with who bring mindfulness into it?
[00:03:58] Speaker B: Yeah. So our team would have quite a shared background within psychology, but then more generally would be interested in interventions that would be helpful to athletes, team teams, coaches and so on, backroom staff. And mindfulness is, is a part of that.
And I guess we are aware at the same time that mindfulness probably has been used a little bit differently in the west than it might have been intended to be used.
And maybe it has been in some ways. Some people might say, you know, prepared as a salable item and it's not the direction we wanted to go in, but it, it, it happens to be commoditized in that way quite a lot in sports settings.
[00:04:46] Speaker A: Yeah, I hear that. That's an interesting.
I'm so glad you bring that up because it is right, it's like, oh, it's another tool to, for performance, strength and, and wait, wait, wait. There is a little more behind that, right?
Yeah, well, I'm glad you bring that up for sure.
Perhaps we can like later dive a little deeper into this.
I'm curious though, like, what are just to kind of set a, a setting here? What are some of the biggest struggles that, that you see in athletes where the athletes where they like show up and, and ask for other tools? I mean, right. Physical training technique, training can get us so far, but the mind is a big part of who we are.
Like what are some big, those big struggles that you see?
[00:05:33] Speaker B: Yeah, I, I think in holistic terms people are living their lives and a part of their lives, maybe a big part of their lives is performing in their sport and to the different degrees that they are involved, some are professional athletes, some are hoping to become professional athletes and so on.
And fundamentally there is a contribution there that they don't really realize what it is taking from them.
The commitment, the elements of their identity, the contribution they have to make.
And at every stage along that program or along that journey, they're learning what it means to stay committed at that point. And they might be 15, it might be 20, 25 and so on. And lots changes with within an athlete's life that are within their control, many things outside of it.
So often it's a more holistic understanding of the way in which they are living their lives, understanding their identity, their changing identity and this resources they need to cope with the demands that, that are inevitable in high performance sport.
[00:06:45] Speaker A: That endurance, the motivation, all of that. Like yeah, because we're all humans Right. And especially when you mentioned like 15 year olds. Right.
That's a big commitment to give it all to sports.
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
So when you're in your career, was it kind of that that you did, you felt like you wanted to bring mindfulness into your work?
[00:07:10] Speaker B: Well, I guess it often it.
When we did our professional training to become a psychologist, one of our therapeutic modalities was person centered.
And person centered is quite different from other modalities in terms of how we are bringing conditions to work with a client.
This is a way of being with the client.
And there is much less of our input in that direct way that we might see with other modalities, but in that process of understanding that somebody can reach their potential given the right circumstances.
And those circumstances in part come from the way in which the psychologist is present with their client.
Now, a lot of what that is asking us to do is an unfolding that everybody's learning a little bit more about themselves, their self awareness, their self acceptance, what it is to be a practitioner and then what it might be on the other side for the athlete to be who they are.
And from a practicing perspective, it's only at the edge of that work that we might offer clients a chance to avail of particular tools that we might find are necessary or valuable to them. But essentially it is they are choosing to be involved in that process.
Now because that offers a menu for athletes. Many of them find that they want to be involved in their sport in a more committed way, but not necessarily externally committed, more internally committed.
So there's a nice fit actually between the work that we do as a person centered practitioner and the choice of interventions. And I'm not necessarily saying that mindfulness is an intervention, but as a practice it fits quite neatly for a lot of athletes that I see.
[00:09:26] Speaker A: Yeah, fascinating. So a lot of it also actually important for coaches. Right. How to be present with. Yeah, and, and, and also especially I could imagine, with a team. Can you really read a team from that different clarity and presence?
[00:09:44] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right. And that whole idea of being present is central to a person centered practice.
And of course it is central to mind and the fact that we practice and learn about where our attention flows and how to bring it to where we want it to be.
It's an ongoing practice, but it's one that resonates a lot with athletes because they understand that attentional drift that they experience and they also understand the clarity of what it is like to be present in things that they are doing.
And it's Very easy for a lot of athletes to feel like that they have to tick all the boxes. Boxes on a daily basis.
But to be present in the same activity is quite a new experience for, for many of them.
[00:10:34] Speaker A: Yeah, well put. Like that whole. Because for some people it could be like, how does mindfulness fit into sports? Right? That whole like, what do you mean? Right? This is all tough stuff and it's like you're just gonna have to push through and all of this stuff. And mindfulness is often associated more with softness and, and stillness and all of that.
And I often like, especially in, in these high level sports, I look at these athletes and I'm like, there is no other way they can perform like they do without some incredible clarity of mind and ways of how to deal with, I mean we're all emotional beings, right? How to deal with the emotional parts of us.
So, so we can still perform at a high level.
Interesting. Yeah.
[00:11:23] Speaker B: I think for a lot of athletes there is, there's a commitment that they are making to their sport where they are involved and they are also clearly aware of the, the validation and the demands and the expectations that lies outside of them.
And mindfulness probably brings them a new dimension that they can be focused and present on in an activity for the sheer enjoyment that that activity offers them.
In Japanese culture, there is a notion of shokun and katagi, which is to do something for the sheer joy and value that it brings in and of itself. And by extension it is something that resonates normally with a community, that it has goodness for a wider community.
And to do something, whatever we're doing, to do it beautifully, attentively, carefully, with consideration is what sports is all about for the most part.
[00:12:29] Speaker A: I, I love you bring that up because it's like the right athletes go into sports because that's what they love to do.
[00:12:36] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:12:37] Speaker A: And they happen to be good at it too. But however they love to do it.
And I could imagine when we give so much to something and, and we have to, like we have, we really have to if we want really good at. It's like playing an instrument you have to practice every day eventually becomes like, not even so much fun. So that then you, you're encouraging people. Hey, you actually love that, like finding that, that joy in it again, right?
[00:13:06] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, very much so. It's trying to actually return to that place, that space, that internal value that you once had, which is kind of that intrinsic playfulness that we see with children and young people. It doesn't have to Be children and young people. It could be anybody learning a new activity.
There is engagement and there is full focus.
And for anybody who has gone on in the, in their sport from childhood to adolescence to young adulthood, they have naturally seen things swapped out.
So the joy and fun that they had is swapped out for pleasing others and reaching a particular, particular standard and setting a standard.
And I think it can, and it certainly is. We know that from the research. That's, that is what is overwhelming, what is possible, is that it is possible to still get to the same level, but to do it with a very different mindset, one that focuses on progression and learning and development and reflection.
And those are the things that are at the heart of high performance sport.
[00:14:18] Speaker A: Anyway, it's just mindfulness, right? Yeah, indeed.
[00:14:23] Speaker B: Yeah. Which is right at the heart of, is a core concentration of the task at hand.
[00:14:30] Speaker A: Right.
[00:14:30] Speaker B: And the more people can recognize that, the easier it is for them to separate what are the demands they experience in their sport from what their sport is asking them to do.
[00:14:46] Speaker A: Beautiful. What? Yeah, when we, because we learn so much faster and so much more intently. Right. When we're excited about something, obviously, and we all know that when we switching to autopilot, we lose a big part of that ability.
[00:15:02] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right. Yeah. And we know from all the research quite clearly that that automaticity that we have has to be developed, of course, but once we have it, the sense that we should be able to access it all the time and perform serenely as often as we would like is what everybody's chasing.
And I guess part of what we are arguing from a sport and exercise perspective is that's available to us, but we are learning to focus and pay attention and concentrate on the task at hand.
And that mindful approach is, it's acknowledged, but it's probably not pursued in the same way as we would like.
[00:15:48] Speaker A: Yeah, it's fascinating. I mean, what is research showing? Can you perhaps share a little bit? Like when it comes to sports and mindfulness.
[00:15:58] Speaker B: So there, there are, you know, there are some published studies, but perhaps not as many as we would. We would like.
And many of the studies, like I was mentioning, are more intervention based.
Put this into your life or put this into your daily program and you will perform better.
Whereas as practitioner psychologists, we're thinking more of the quality and standard of your life being better with this as part of it, rather than it being a focused intervention for performance only.
And we often take mindfulness and take it alongside other skills and attributes. And what I mean by that is I mentioned that Professor Aid Moran earlier and Professor Aidan Morin's interest was in concentration.
And the crossover between mindfulness and concentration is quite clear. And paying attention to the task at hand and any of the interventions that people are doing are really aiming towards bringing our attention back to the present moment.
And regardless of the sport or the activity, although we might talk about precision sports or target sports and interactive sports and so on, we still have a possibility of being able to play, perform, execute the task at hand by being mindfully present, which is essentially where we're all trying to head to, because it crosses over so neatly with a lot of research on flow and flow experiences.
[00:17:40] Speaker A: Yeah. So that flow state.
Tell me more. Yeah, because we talk a lot about the flow state. Right. And how can, how can, how can mindfulness practices support that?
[00:17:51] Speaker B: Yeah, well, the flow state is characterized by time slowing down and this presence of a cocoon and almost a.
A faultless state, a way of being that you're in tune with everything you're doing. Things feel effortless.
And we would again, look at how that relates to our normal functioning. If we can perform like this in this flow state, even though it is rare, it is acknowledging that we can help ourselves to create conditions that allow us to do this more often.
And part of that expression of ourselves is coming true, the way in which we start to understand and treat ourselves.
What I mean by that is that when we think about the ego and ego states, we really are trying to reduce or diminish the ego and why. So that there is a doing, but they're not. They're not necessarily a doer in that doing.
And we do know from, again, from research of several different strands, how beneficial it is for us to be immersed in what we're doing rather than calculating, judging, defining, determining what's really happening me at that time.
[00:19:25] Speaker A: Isn't it interesting? That's when we mess up these.
[00:19:29] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:19:30] Speaker A: It's right. And you know, in, in, in Zen, we call it Wu way, which is that doing without doing state. Right. Yeah, you. And yeah, and of course it takes practice. Right. It's like, let's say you're an athlete, you have to practice until you get that body memory down and all of that. And then there's this different. It's almost like a different dimension. Right. That kicks in when. Right, yeah. And. And it, it inquires such a clear and focused and present really mind. Right, yeah, interesting.
[00:20:10] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, it really doesn't matter which domain of, of sport or physical activity. We're involved in almost every activity has a. A demand on us to pay attention and to be at one with what we're doing.
Although it may feel like it is a state a little bit far away from what we can reach, the orientation towards it is what matters. That we are stretching towards this non ego state, this presence, this way of being with our activities.
And what I guess what's most difficult is that we are trying to use words to describe feeling states and concentrated or connected states with tasks at hand that can be most difficult for a lot of people to grasp.
[00:21:09] Speaker A: Mm. Like, you know, I mean, also research shows, right. That the present mind is a happy mind.
Right. And the wandering mind is an unhappy mind. And so I remind myself, let's say I'm doing something I don't necessarily want to do. Let's say I am going to do the dishes, which actually I like to do. But let's just say that a lot of people don't like to do the dishes. But doing the dishes instead of thinking, oh, I read, I want to go read my book. Right.
It was like, okay, now I'm doing the dishes and I'm just present and then actually is a beautiful thing. I feel this and, and I like the water and the warmth and the dishes get clean and it's just. It suddenly becomes a beautiful thing.
Yeah. And I would say I'm probably going to do a better job on those dishes than if I'm growing grumpy.
[00:22:01] Speaker B: Yeah, I do. I mean, what you describe in there, I guess across literature in various facets of psychology comes back to that same thing, is that doing these activities that we boring or we are uninterested or disinterested in is actually a benefit to us because it gives us an opportunity to be present in busy lives, lives that are usually distracted with several activities. And it's actually reasons why working with athletes, we encourage them to do things that are about taking care of themselves. Their, you know, their living space, cleaning, tiding, whatever it might be. Why? Because they are mindful activ.
And in an. In the activity itself is the escape is the freedom.
Now we always are, you know, whether it is us persuading ourselves that if only someone else could do that work for us or tidy the garden, etc. But if, if we are to invest ourselves in it mindfully, those activities are actually enriching our lives. And from what we know about our brain responds to activities like this, they're in a happier place.
[00:23:22] Speaker A: Beautiful. Yeah. And now, I mean, we didn't know much about this kind of research. Right. 30 years ago. It's such a fast development of understanding what actually what is happiness and what makes us happy. And therefore when we're. We all know that when we're happy we can climb Everest. It's no problem. Like that's right. But when we're depressed, when we're doubting ourselves, everything is like an uphill battle. And I, I bet you like right with. In sports, that's really not what you need.
[00:23:57] Speaker B: Yeah, I think. Well, what we certainly know, and there was a very famous study published well must be over 20 years ago now establishing that happy people succeed rather than us succeeding and then taking happiness from us.
So if that was a difference.
[00:24:19] Speaker A: Okay. I really hope you listeners hear that.
[00:24:22] Speaker B: Yeah. And yeah, it sounds counterintuitive to us because we think that when we win the competition or you know, get the project finished or whatever it might be that, that that is what is changing how we feel about ourselves and about our lives.
But in fact, it is the other way around. It is that happy people are achieving and well inside in that is there is the perma model. And the perma model is kind of capturing these ways in which we flourish, like having positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning and achievement.
And those five categories are capturing a lot of activities for us.
Our positive emotions and the ways in which we receive positive emotions or create them in our own lives is vitally important.
But it's also interesting to notice that when we engage with activities, engage with others, develop relationships, create meaning in our lives that we are starting to flourish.
And of course we need time out and we need a break and we need all of those elements. But at the same time, it is really about a lot of what we are doing and how present we are doing what we are doing.
[00:25:49] Speaker A: You know, during this conversation a few times, this. I forgot her name. This female ice skater Olympian comes to my mind.
The one who took. Took back a medal, gold medal.
Do you know who I'm talking about? I do anyway, but who knows?
People can look her up, but.
Because she just was pure joy out on that ice and.
[00:26:15] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:26:16] Speaker A: She didn't even. I felt like it didn't. She didn't really want to win necessarily. She just did her thing and then it was so good because of that. I mean, just what you described of the joy and just being happy and you succeed. It's just kind of like that picture came in, came in my mind a couple times now. Yeah, it's.
[00:26:38] Speaker B: You will see lots of examples of this. Not when people write out autobiographies or describe excellent moments or moments of peak performance in their lives. They're often talking about that clarity, that oneness, that kind of distinction of me doing what I'm doing for the sake of doing it. A bit like what I was saying with that Shokun and Katagi earlier is to do something for the sheer joy that it provides and for the clarity and keenness that we get from it.
And there are lots of books and lots written in philosophy about these things. There was a very famous book written about Zen and the art of motorcycle means.
[00:27:20] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, of course a lot of
[00:27:22] Speaker B: people will have read that or maybe read it or maybe not read it and misunderstood it. But you know, a central theme of that book was about taking our time to do something well.
Right. So we do things with quality and that, you know, I guess the narrator is lamenting the lack of quality and time invested, that nobody is taking care.
And the opportunity for us to take care and to do something well and so on in today's way of living probably feels at odds with how we are, you know, with the demands that are placed upon us. This has to be done quicker, faster and more often.
[00:28:07] Speaker A: So interesting that that holistic approach. Right. You can't just separate the human from the sport.
[00:28:17] Speaker B: Yeah, that's. That is right. As much as we would probably like to, you know, plug in the program and let it run fold, it's not who we are as human beings and not necessarily how we've been designed or how our brain works in our.
In our head. So we are working with ourselves to find ways that best help us to. Not just to perform to our best, but for a lot of people just to gain enjoyment out of the activities they once enjoyed.
[00:28:47] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, what are we living here for? For the gold medal or to have a good time? Yeah, it's a good reminder. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.
So, yeah, I mean, when. When we look at top. I mean, a lot of top athletes nowadays, right.
Are having mindfulness coaches. Teams are working with mindfulness, like literally from LeBron James to Serena Williams too. I mean, right. There's a ton big teams like the Seahawks and Golden State Warriors. Yeah, yeah, a lot of people. Because I teach mindfulness in schools and sometimes I need a buy in with little older kids and if I bring up this kind of stuff, they suddenly like park up is like. What do you mean? Like, I love these guys. Like they're practicing. Might can't be that bad, you know.
[00:29:41] Speaker B: That's right. I mean, probably one of the famous Examples of it was in Michael Jordan's the Last Dance.
You see a good example of it. There was clips of that within the video as well, of them as a group working together, meditating mindfully, you know, and going through their own mindful practice. And not just was that it was there 30 plus years ago, but that it is slow for most athletes and teams and people involved in the sport to accept on that work on our mind is. Is work and then a necessary one.
And people like LeBron, etc. Are bringing that in a way that not just for performance, but for well being, that there are benefits that we can have for ourselves. And the best part of it is they're free.
[00:30:36] Speaker A: So do you feel like you get a whole bunch of pushbacks too? Like sometimes from athletes or coaches?
[00:30:42] Speaker B: Yeah, I guess over the years there has been a growing appetite for support and psychological support and self understanding and self awareness and so on. And in a way, see a lot of ways that psychologists work is that people come to us for our services.
We're not necessarily going to them, but at that time when they do come to us, they're trying to judge and we're trying to judge whether this work will work with us.
And that's a really important part of it, that the choice ought to be on the client side of who they feel works best for them or their approach, the emphasis they have, and so on. And that's why mindfulness as a, not just as a technique but as a way of being has perhaps grown and blossomed over the last 10 years.
[00:31:33] Speaker A: So when you just kind of differentiate a little bit here, what do you, what would you, how would you describe, like the difference between traditional mental training and more mindfulness based on practices?
[00:31:48] Speaker B: Yeah, so I guess in the past there were certain skills, maybe six or seven skills that related to setting goals and speaking positively to yourself and learning to relax and visualizing and so on and a couple of more.
But with the third wave and the more mindful based approaches, we see a different orient, an orientation towards not just mindful based practice, but an orientation that those interventions that we have are a selection on the menu.
But the way of being kind of mindful based practice is a different setup, a different presentation, a different orientation, as it were.
And most psychologists work with modalities like a cognitive behavior therapy or rational emotive behavior therapy and so on.
And within that practice they may have an orientation that is much more towards mindfulness based practice.
So what we see now is a way of being with the client, a way of Looking at the world, a way of examining and reflecting on how they see themselves, others, and the world around them, which is a more holistic approach, not necessarily just using mindfulness as an intervention.
[00:33:16] Speaker A: So. Well put. Right. I mean, we can't actually even use it as a tool if it doesn't become part of our life. Right. It's a practice that goes into everything from as I mentioned, washing the dishes to brushing your teeth to listening to your child having a meltdown.
[00:33:37] Speaker B: It is so intertwined in our lives.
You know, the chance to, I don't want to say to practice mindfulness, but to be mindful is everywhere. We have opportunities everywhere and opportunities to be present, which is why it works out so well that that presence we're looking for to take a penalty, to, you know, kick a field goal or whatever it might be, is the chance we have washing the dishes, brushing our teeth, taking a shower, eating a raisin, whatever it might be.
[00:34:13] Speaker A: Yeah, eating reason. Exactly.
Yeah. And it takes, it takes commitment to it. Yeah.
Just. Okay, we're gonna do this drill and I'm gonna do the drill every.
[00:34:25] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, that's right. I know a colleague of mine in his practice, he takes the first 10 minutes of it of a session to be mindfully presence. And he introduces that as a way of being in his sessions and has a more profound effect on the outcomes of his work simply because of where they're coming to, what they're learning and practicing and integrating into their lives.
[00:34:56] Speaker A: So, so when we do, let's just go like into a concrete example of.
Because. Okay. Mindfulness works with that non judgmental part that you said. Right. That that way of being.
And often when we think of. Of sport, there could be big judgments. Right. It's like there is good bad. I mean, either you shoot the goal or you don't.
[00:35:21] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right.
[00:35:23] Speaker A: So it almost clashes a little bit. It does, yeah. However, like the, the moment before, let's say how would you.
What. What happens in an athlete's brain who's using perhaps mindfulness right before there want to shoot a hoop or a goal or whatever. Like what. What could be helpful moments there?
[00:35:49] Speaker B: Yeah. And I guess there's lots of different layers both of research and practice that cross over because it might be the use of breath, breath work, physical relaxation exercises, sense based activities, things that we are essentially trying to get our parasympathetic system, the system that down regulates our arousal so that we get an opportunity to be able to think and feel again.
And bringing our attention back to the. To the moment, whether it is true sense of touch.
And there are lots of examples of this, lots of practical examples in the literature. There's a very famous one from a person called Dan Carter. He was in a New Zealand All Blacks rugby player, one of the most famous of their rugby players.
And when he was kicking, you know, a bit like a penalty taker, he was.
He would rub his toes in the base of his boots, of his football boots so that he would, you know, take his mind out of.
And articulate attention away from his mind and put it back into his body, as it were. And those type of methods are very common now, especially the sense of touch, smell, sound, sight, etc. Yeah, they're. They're very commonly integrated now into how people are bringing themselves back to the moment.
[00:37:28] Speaker A: Just as Strong cup of Sin says coming back to the senses. Right. It's really like that. It's totally like that. Like, just touch. Like I use this daily, like literally just right before this interview. I always get a little nervous about certain things. You know, it's like, okay, I'm sitting here, I'm breathing, I'm. I'm seeing my surrounding. That kind of stuff. I use the stuff daily.
[00:37:52] Speaker B: Yeah. And.
[00:37:53] Speaker A: Yeah. And it makes it way more enjoyable. And I can be present and, and I can enjoy what I do instead of being completely freaked out.
[00:38:02] Speaker B: That's right. Yeah.
[00:38:05] Speaker A: And so. Okay, just to, to kind of change it in the way of.
Because often I could imagine that thought process, right. Of like, what if I miss or I'm going to miss or I'm going to mess this up or I'm letting my team down. All these things, these. Right. These thoughts come in. That's the mind. It does that.
[00:38:25] Speaker B: Yeah, it does.
And there are different approaches that people use.
Simple approaches might be like in CBT of catch the thought, check the thought, change the thought.
And then we have other practices in act acceptance and commitment therapy that are more about, see that thought, maybe float onto a leaf on the river and then float down the river.
So we have different ways of trying to acknowledge what is happening inside our brain and allowing ourselves to distance us from our thoughts.
So those would be more active, concrete, concrete cognitive activities that we are trying to make available to us. But often for people in competition, because of the nature of competition, probably the intensity, we're trying to cool down that regulation so that we feel a little bit more grounded.
That even though in the midst of this thing that matters a lot to us, we feel that our body is our own, we are back in touch with our Touch that we can feel our feet on the ground and so on.
And those mechanisms.
[00:39:51] Speaker A: Yeah. We all know that when we're stressed out, we mess up way more than if we're not.
And that's easier said than done. However, nowadays we do have these practices that can help us out.
[00:40:04] Speaker B: Yeah, that's absolutely right. And it is really the nature that we want to draw attention to the ways in which we can be present even under this stress or the distress of competition, because we have these functions available to us, and we've learned a lot about. A lot of research published in different fields about how we cope with the demands of. Of stressful events.
[00:40:34] Speaker A: Right.
[00:40:36] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:40:36] Speaker A: I want to remind everybody, you are listening to Mindful Mud. My guest today is Dr. Paul McCarthy, and we are talking about mindfulness in sports and.
And how that looks like, you know, when we talk about stressful moments in sport.
I really. I can't help but I have to bring up the World cup and the Swiss game and the penalty shootout, I mean, just as a spectacle, like, as somebody watching the game. I mean, the stress is so high, right?
[00:41:09] Speaker B: Like, absolutely.
[00:41:11] Speaker A: And if you watch these audiences, too, like some of the YouTube clips, right, it's like everybody's quiet and like this, and then everybody's like. Like either just collapsing if we lost or if we wanted.
And I mean, that is the ultimate pressure I could imagine for an athlete, like, millions of people watching it right, on TV and some in life, and. And you either gonna put that in or not. I mean, the pressure is so high. What are these people doing before they do that?
[00:41:38] Speaker B: Like, well, it's. You know, it's so interesting because in the past, the attention paid to penalties was less, and now it's becoming a little bit more focused and way in which they prepare and understand penalties has changed. There's lots of very interesting research. For example, if keepers stood still in the middle of the goal, they would save 23% more penalties.
But because there is the onus on them to make an attempt, diving as what the crowd expects them to do, so that's what they do.
So.
[00:42:18] Speaker A: So funny you bring this up, because I'm always thinking, like, why are you diving?
[00:42:22] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah, that's right. And it is so common because we tend to see people kick to, you know, to each corner of the goal. But there are lots of other parts as well in terms of the intensity and strain that is on the. The kickers that are, you know, in position 2, 3, 4, and 5. In the penalty shootout. One of the ways I have describing it is if there were a backpack on the first player kicking, the next player who's next in line has extra weight put on him or her in a penalty shootout, and the next player after them have again, more weight placed on them because the demand is to make sure they keep on scoring.
And that's why I would say more than ever, we need mindfulness as a central element of the ways in which we relate to the activities that we are involved in.
And the stress and strain is very clear, I guess, from a few nights ago when Lionel Messi had missed his penalty. He was distressed and upset at the end because he thought the opportunity for his team to succeed was taken away or that he had taken away that. But in the end, they ended up scoring, scoring three goals in a game where they were down two nil. So we know that lots of things are happening, even to the greatest players on the planet that mean that they need ways of controlling the stress that they feel.
[00:43:54] Speaker A: And I'm glad you bring that up because, like, it's inevitable, right, that we mess up sometimes, no matter how good we are.
[00:44:03] Speaker B: That's exactly right.
[00:44:04] Speaker A: The question is, and I noticed this for myself, and I'm not a sports person in that way, I'm not an athlete in that way. But in my daily other things, since I practice mindfulness and meditation, I recover from stressful things so much easier. They still bug me if I mess up. I'm so mad, I'm still like unhappy. But sometimes it's literally a couple seconds instead of days.
So what would you say about the recovery, like, for folks who are. Because it's the worst if you miss, let's just say like soccer or football in if you miss the goal, like, you have to let that go, right, to keep playing on top notch. So, yeah, what are some recovery?
[00:44:53] Speaker B: And for a lot of people, that is what they come to our therapy sessions to understand more about themselves, what happened, why it happened, to understand the emotions that they are feeling, like the shame, the guilt, the embarrassment.
And for a lot of people, they have to live with this for the rest of their lives, depending on the environment, you know, the, the context of the games and so on.
And partly what we are trying to do is to understand that these elements of the game are one part of this huge collage of opportunities and challenges that they're going to experience.
One of the things we often come back to is to say, do you love the game? And they'll say, yeah, I love the game.
And then if we say, if we broaden our Definition of love is love only about good things happening. They say, well no, lots of bad things happen and love means dealing with them, helping, working, true, etc. And that is essentially what the sport is all about. And every sport is, is that the love is an engagement with, not an avoidance of, you know, the difficult and more challenging times.
[00:46:08] Speaker A: And that can be painful sometimes, right?
[00:46:10] Speaker B: Yeah. And pain. Probably one of the best instructors we have in life.
[00:46:17] Speaker A: I just said that this morning in the qigong class and they all just looked at me like really?
Again.
[00:46:23] Speaker B: Oh yeah.
[00:46:25] Speaker A: It is true though, right?
[00:46:26] Speaker B: It teaches us. Yeah, it certainly does.
[00:46:29] Speaker A: Yeah, it is. If we can start listening and not just avoiding. And that's where mindfulness is, is such a different tool, a different way of being because we're not pushing things away, right? We're like, okay, this is painful. Okay, I messed up now what?
[00:46:46] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right. We often use the phrase in psychological. The therapeutic work of sitting with.
What's it like to sit with the pain, the sadness, the soreness, the loss.
And we are sitting with it and feeling it in our body, not, not trying to intellectualize or understand the words that explain it, but sitting with.
And for a lot of people again in, in mindfulness based practices, trying to do exactly the same is to notice that I can be here with my sadness, I can be here with my frustration, whatever it might be. And, and we learn that we can tolerate it so much easier.
And that way of being self aware leads to greater self acceptance because we see ourselves as fallible human beings who are trying to do something for a benefit. And knowing that that benefit will come through. Persistence is probably the most important message.
[00:47:51] Speaker A: I'm so, I'm so glad you bring up that self compassion part. It's so. I guess it's so important especially because when we exposing ourselves for also messing up like in sport, like in life.
[00:48:05] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right.
[00:48:06] Speaker A: We gonna have to have that. Otherwise we're just gonna stay home and not go out anymore.
No, you know, definitely don't show up to play sports. It's like we need that. And that's another thing that I think is probably most likely under undervalued in the sports field. That self compassion part.
[00:48:27] Speaker B: Yeah, it tends to be from you know, the research that we do and measuring self compassion among athletes, it tends to be quite low and it tends to be quite low because the environment is a constant positionality. What I mean by that is that it is constantly checking our position where we are relative to everybody else.
And if there are Places to climb, then the onus is on us to climb them. Now while that is an inherent and natural part of the sport, it doesn't have to be a drag or it doesn't have to be so onerous. It could be. That's just our direction of travel.
So we want to be able to see, and the research is quite clear on this. People who are forgiving and compassionate towards themselves have the greatest resilience for the future.
And if you think that is so
[00:49:20] Speaker A: important though, I mean that is, that should be such a big headline over, over the sports world, right? Just to say, hey, research shows actually self compassion will get you up there eventually.
[00:49:33] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. So, and even when we often come across things like in parenting and children in sport, a lot of children are met with alarm and judgment when they, you know, with parents and coaches and teachers and so on because it just seems like the most natural thing in the world that that's what adults will do with children.
But children thrive when they're met with compassion and understanding because they know what's happened. They understand that they don't like it either.
You know. Yeah, they were there.
[00:50:09] Speaker A: You know, we all want to succeed in our own way and we think that beating ourselves up is going to get somewhere. And research shows so clearly nowadays that beating yourself up is not going to make you better at anything.
[00:50:23] Speaker B: No, no. Your whole appreciation and association with the activity is starting to float on anxiety. We are just getting more worried, we're getting more threatened. We don't see the challenge in things.
We try to protect ourselves. We are trying to hide away from the emotions that are inherent in sport and competitive sport.
So we're actually getting, becoming less able to deal with the events and the demands that we know are inevitable in sport and high performance sport in particular.
[00:50:58] Speaker A: So beautiful. I really hope there's a lot of coaches out there listening to this and parents with highly competitive kids because yeah, digging a little bit more into that research can show us so much that might be at the beginning, counterintuitive.
[00:51:15] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:51:15] Speaker A: And, and it's, it's, it makes everything more joyful. I don't think parents or coaches want to beat up their kids. I mean, you know, emotionally it's, you want to lift each other up and, and it just gets us so much further.
So we're almost coming to the end of this show. This is so fast and so fascinating. Thank you, Paul, for taking your time here. Just a couple last perhaps questions like what do you think are probably like the most misunderstood factors when it comes to mindfulness in sports.
[00:51:58] Speaker B: I think perhaps that mindfulness is so much of a benefit to our overall well being that it can be part of our lives everywhere. The fact that it might be in the training ground or at the competition site is just incidental.
It really is that it is everywhere in our lives and it happens to be there too, rather than this tool that we are shoving into this position for this time or this event.
And that really misses the. The value and the real essence of what, what is meant by mindfulness.
[00:52:35] Speaker A: Beautiful. So just it doesn't even need to be sports related. Right. It can just be start a mindfulness practice, whatever that is.
[00:52:43] Speaker B: Right.
[00:52:44] Speaker A: And you will basically become a better athlete eventually. You also become a better human being.
[00:52:51] Speaker B: There is. That is certainly. We certainly know a lot about it now. In 2026, you have more choice.
[00:52:59] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Wonderful. So, Paul, perhaps if you could let people know how they can, because you have a ton of articles up on your website how they can get in touch with you, find out more about your work.
[00:53:11] Speaker B: Work. Yeah. So a lot of the kind of work that I do, I guess I split between research articles that are published for kind of the academic domain, but further afield as well, and the general popular blogs I put on my website, which are about all facets of sport performance and psychology in general. And Those are on drpaulmccarthy.com and you'll find those with a web search.
And I just try to spell that
[00:53:39] Speaker A: please, for the listeners.
[00:53:41] Speaker B: So it's the. It's www.doctor Paul P A U L M C C A or T H y dot com.
[00:53:54] Speaker A: Very good. Thank you, Paul, so much for being here. I learned so much. It was such a pleasure talking with you all the way from zooming in here from Glasgow and you listener, thank you for listening in. Also thank you for KMUD for hosting the show. Okay, you all be well. Thank you for listening.
This has been a K mud podcast to listen to other shows and more episodes of this show. Find us on all the platforms where you get your podcast and also on our website, kmud.org.
